


Reassurance

by SpiritAlpha



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22985590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritAlpha/pseuds/SpiritAlpha
Summary: Trying to cope with the recent revelations about her past, the Doctor goes to the one person who has been consistent in her life.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Susan Foreman
Kudos: 45





	Reassurance

The Doctor's mind was whirling. She was the Timeless Child, she had all of these lives which she couldn't remember. 

Her friends presumed her dead. The Master and the Cyber army had been destroyed by the Death Particle - although knowing the Master, he would have found a way to survive, especially with the Cyberium in his system.

The TARDIS hummed quietly in an attempt to reassure her.

"Thanks, old girl. But it's not helping." 

How many times had she and the TARDIS known each other? Idris had told her that she chose the Doctor; was that because they had already travelled together?

She thought back to her childhood on Gallifrey, her time at the Academy, her family.

An image popped into her head of another innocent young girl with abilities so powerful that the Time Lords tried to manipulate them for their own gain.

The Doctor stood up and set the controls. Susan was the one thing that had kept her going ever since leaving Gallifrey.

The TARDIS landed in Susan's apartment and the Doctor stumbled out. In front of her was her granddaughter, looking much older than the Doctor's current incarnation.

Even if the TARDIS hadn't been there, Susan would have recognised her grandmother straight away.

"Grandmother?" asked Susan. The Doctor smiled weakly.

"Susan," she said, staggering forward and throwing her arms around Susan, literally collapsing into a hug. Then the Doctor started sobbing.

"Grandmother, what's wrong?" Susan asked. The Doctor didn't answer, but her psychic barriers went down and Susan was hit with a wave of confusion, grief, anger.

Eventually, the Doctor pulled out of the hug then cupped Susan's face in her hands with a look of desperation on her face.

"I'm so sorry." The Doctor said.

"For what?" asked Susan.

"For abandoning you. For keeping secrets from you. The only good thing I did was taking you away from Gallifrey."

"Grandmother, you practically raised me," said Susan. "And I turned out alright, didn't I?" The Doctor nodded, smiling. "Where's all of this coming from?" The Doctor's smile faded.

"I'm not who I thought I was."

"What do you mean?" asked Susan. "You're the Doctor. You're my grandmother."

"I'm not just that." The Doctor sighed and moved over to the sofa, flopping down onto it. Susan sat down next to her.

"Grandmother, what's going on?" she asked again. 

In the past, the Doctor would have just dismissed her and pretended that everything was ok. But both of them were older and Susan was too smart for yet another lie.

"It's a long story." said the Doctor. Susan took hold of her hands. 

"Tell me," she said. 

The Doctor rested her forehead against Susan's and told her, using the memories that she had recently regained. Susan stayed quiet throughout, sensing that her grandmother needed to let it all out.

When the story had finished, the Doctor let out a breath and the two of them looked at each other. Susan threw her arms around her and gave her a hug.

"I'm sorry," Susan said. "I can't imagine how hard that was for you."

"It was hard." The Doctor agreed. "I had to come and see you, Susan. My sense of identity is all over the place. You're the one consistent thing in my life that has meaning." She couldn't see Susan's face but knew that she was smiling.

They pulled back out of the hug, still holding onto each other.

"A lot of things make sense, now that I think about it," Susan said.

"Really?" asked the Doctor. "Like what?"

"Alex being 7% Gallifreyan. David's human DNA must have cancelled out my Gallifreyan, and whatever your original species was, DNA," said Susan. The Doctor nodded. "My unusually strong telepathy. If you have endless regenerations, that probably made your telepathy stronger and then it skipped a generation and made mine stronger."

"Which would be why I was so protective of you when you were younger." The Doctor replied. "The Time Lords already used my regenerative abilities for their own gain. They saw my granddaughter with strong telepathic abilities and tried to do the same thing."

"Is that why we left?"

"Yes. I couldn't...I _wouldn't_...let them hurt you the same way they did me."

"Looking into the Untempered Schism didn't help either," said Susan. "You were the only one who helped me through it."

"You never said what you experienced during that." said the Doctor. "I didn't want to mention it before. If you still don't want to talk about it, I understand that." They fell silent again.

"What did you see?" Susan asked.

"I saw...what I now know to be me on the planet underneath the portal just before Tecteun found me." The Doctor replied. "I didn't understand it at the time, but I was so...scared. So much so that I ran away."

"I heard voices," said Susan. "Lots of them. The longer I stared into the vortex, the more I heard. I eventually couldn't take it anymore and I ran away." She looked down at the floor and the Doctor put an arm around her.

"I'm sorry," she said, thinking of the drumming inside the Master's head. "Did the voices stop? _Have_ they stopped?"

"When we started travelling in the TARDIS." replied Susan. "It's like...the further away we got from Gallifrey, the more the voices went away until eventually they stopped." The Doctor let out a sigh of relief.

"Good. That's good," she said. "The Master had a similar experience. When he looked into the vortex, he heard drumming which got stuck in his head. It went away. Eventually."

"That's good," said Susan. Her voice sounded pleasant but the Doctor sensed something else underneath the surface.

"What happened between the two of you?" asked the Doctor. Susan looked up at her. "Susan, I can tell that something happened between the two of you. What was it?"

"It was one time. And I didn't tell you because I handled it."

"Well, whatever it is he didn't tell me either." The Doctor replied. "What happened?"

"The Master was on 22nd century Earth, plotting to steal a superweapon which ended up awakening a Dalek Artifact," Susan explained. "David and I went to investigate and the Master killed him. Right in front of me." She paused, looking away and taking a deep breath before looking back at the Doctor. "The Master took me hostage but didn't realise that I was another Gallifreyan. Once he had landed on Tersurus, I used his TARDIS' telepathic circuits to fry his mind, then forced him out of his TARDIS and shot him with his TCE while he was holding a matter transmuter. It caused an explosion and I stole his TARDIS, leaving him for dead."

For the first time since the Master had revealed himself, the Doctor burst into delighted laughter.

"So _that's_ how he ended up all crispy! He got his ass kicked...by my granddaughter." The Doctor said, between laughs. "Oh, I am not going to let him forget this!"

"That's made you feel a lot better," said Susan.

"Of course it has! My best enemy got killed by my granddaughter! Who he didn't even notice!" The Doctor exclaimed, beaming with happiness.

"Aren't you the one who keeps not noticing the Master when even he's right in front of you?" Susan asked, smiling.

"...Yeah, shut up." Susan laughed. The Doctor changed tactic, wanting to cheer things up. "Do you want to see inside the TARDIS? She's redecorated again."

"I'd like that," said Susan, nodding. 

The Doctor smiled and stood up, pulling Susan up and leading her over to the TARDIS. She pushed the door open and gestured for Susan to walk inside.

Susan gasped as she walked in. The new control room had non-connected hexagonal walls containing a cog-like pattern. There were also a few blue lights in walls as well as a hexagonal monitor. Instead of a normal monitor at the console, there was a blue holographic image on the side which displayed Gallifreyan.

The console itself didn't have a time rotor in the centre, instead having a giant orange crystal. Six other crystals were formed around the console. On the console were various levers and nobs in what she recognised as a steampunk style. There was even a tiny glass replica of the TARDIS on the console.

"It's beautiful!" Susan exclaimed, smiling.

"Thanks." The Doctor replied, closing the door and walking up beside her.

"I'm staying with you, Grandmother," Susan told her.

"Are you sure?" asked the Doctor. "What about your life here?"

"You're more important right now," said Susan, taking hold of her hand. "I know what you're like when you travel alone. Let me keep you sane."

"Oh, Susan." said the Doctor, cupping her cheek with her other hand. "I'd like that very much."


End file.
